Olympic hopeful Sky Brown says she’s ready to “get back up and push harder” after suffering a harrowing fall that resulted in a skull fracture and broken arm.
The father of 11-year-old star skateboarder Sky Brown says doctors have called her recovery “a miracle” after she suffered a skull fracture and other serious injuries in a life-threatening fall from a ramp.
The British skateboarder and Olympic hopeful posted video on YouTube Monday showing her trying to jump over a gap between two vertical ramps before she loses control mid-air and plummets to the ground. The fall was about 15 feet, her father said.
The video, which does not show her hit the ground, includes footage of ambulances, a fire truck and a helicopter, and later cuts to Sky in a hospital bed with a blackened right eye and a cast on her left arm.
“I don’t usually post my falls or talk about them, because I want people to see the fun in what I do, but this was my worst fall, and I just want everyone to know that it’s OK, don’t worry, I’m okay,” Brown says from her bed in the video.
“It’s okay to fall sometimes. I’m just going to get back up and push even harder. I know there’s a lot going on in the world right now, and I want everyone to know that whatever we do, we’ve just got to do it with love and happiness.”
Brown, who became the youngest professional skateboarder in the world at 9 years old in 2018, also wrote in the description of the video on YouTube that her helmet and putting out her left arm to break her fall “saved my life.”
Brown’s father, Stewart, detailed the harrowing fall and the aftermath in a message on Instagram.
“Last week the worst thing I could ever ever imagined happened to @skybrown,” he wrote. “She fell about 15ft off the side of a vert ramp to flat concrete. I held her in my arms and she bled helplessly moaning in and out of consciousness waiting for the helicopter to take her to the Hospital.
“We spent the night sick and terrified not knowing if Sky was going to make it through the night, as the ICU team tried to get her conscious and kept her alive.”
Brown suffered multiple fractures to her skull, a broken left arm, broken right fingers and lacerations to her heart and lungs, according to her father.
Four days later, she was smiling and watching TikTok videos in her hospital bed.
“More importantly her Doctors and the trauma team say it’s a miracle how well she is dealing with the pain and recovering incredibly fast,” her father wrote. “They said it’s shocking and believe it’s because of her grit, positivity and attitude.”
Brown and her younger brother, Ocean, 8, are both skateboarders with large social media followings. Ocean was not allowed to see his sister in the hospital due to coronavirus restrictions, but has been FaceTiming with her, according to their father.
“Sky promises Ocean daily that she will make a fast recovery so they can be together again,” he wrote. “Sky is constantly joking and smiling and it’s hurts my heart to even imagine for a second a world without Sky; extremely thankful that I don’t have to.”
She is hoping to resume her quest of a gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics, which were postponed until next year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I want to be in the Olympics to inspire girls because I feel like when they see me, this little girl does this crazy trick, they’ll probably think that they can do it, too,” Brown told Craig Melvin on TODAY last year.
The 2021 Olympics will be the first to feature skateboarding as a sport.
“I’m excited to come back even stronger and even tougher,” she wrote on Instagram Tuesday. “My heart wants to go so hard right now. I’m just waiting for my body to catch up. Thank you everyone for sending your love, messages and supporting me. I’m sorry to make you worry. I’m gonna be just fine.”
